He drew the smoke into his lungs while the sun warmed his skin. Sweat rolled, like beads, down his weather-beaten face as he waited for the bus. The bus was late, as always, but there was a certain comfort in the predictability of that. In a world that was so much faster than he could keep apace with, when things slowed down they afforded him more time to enjoy the triviality of it all. You see, he knew that in the hindsight of debility and senectitude, it was the trivial things that reminded you that you have lived, and loved - the breath of a baby against your neck, the curve of a beautiful woman's back. Most people, he knew, didn't die of disease, they simply drifted away, like leaves plucked by a sudden breeze from the tree of life - they wilted away and died of old age. It was beyond him, why people moved so fast when all they were rushing towards was the end of it all; but he figured that young age was a grave nurturer of invincibility. Longing for his youth, he wished he could embrace invincibility, but he knew better - with more of his peers and loved ones beneath the earth he walked on, than above, he knew his time had come. And standing alone at the bus stop, he knew that this was how it would end for him - alone. No one would ask, "Where is that man with the beard? I didn't see him at the bus stop today!", and those who would momentarily weep his absence would soon continue in the whirlpool of life. Solitude had now become his only friend, and he embraced it with open arms, which is why he loved fishing - sitting, for hours on end, contemplating life, and learning to be a little more patient, and hoping that the breeze that would pluck him from the tree of life would soon blow his way, and carry him into oblivion - an everlasting fishing trip.
Photography © Tremaine Fletcher
Prose © Hira Hasnain
(Plagiarism or theft of property will result in legal action)
